The G-List + the A-List
The top picks from the “most green” and “most important” lists: William McDonough’s Adam Joseph Lewis Center (left) and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
This week, when Lance Hosey released the G-List, his survey of the top green buildings since 1980, he was responding to Vanity Fair’s celebrity rankings of the top-rated buildings of the last 30 years, which anointed Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao as the most important building of our time. But Gehry’s name was nowhere to be found on the G-List. Why was I searching for some signs of him among the greens?
Well, a couple months back, when I picked up on Gehry’s glib dismissal of LEED, I mentioned that our A-List architects have stood on the sidelines, even as the rest of the profession was struggling with the major issues of our time, like global warming and the now 20-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act. Instead of debating the reasons for the disconnect between the heroes of architecture and the rank and file, I found myself in the midst of an anti-LEED, pro-Gehry debate. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that indeed Gehry incorporates green moves into his buildings and that my understanding of his work was at best sketchy, at worst, ignorant. So I’ve been humbled, and was willing to learn something new—therefore my search for Gehry on the G-List. After all, the people in Lance’s survey are known leaders in the green movement. If anyone, they would certainly know if Gehry or other American stars have made significant contributions to the knowledge base of sustainable design. (I must admit here that I was one of the 150 people Lance surveyed, along with such well-known greens as Bob Berkebile, Bill Browning, Will Bruder, and Pliny Fisk.)
I agree with Lance. If our understanding of the built environment is to grow, and contribute to solving some of the most complex environmental and social problems of our time, the G-List and the A-List must start working together. Everyone else is learning to collaborate, to bring their expertise, art, and willpower to serve the greater good. Why can’t architects do the same?
Previously: You Are So Wrong, Frank Gehry!
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You want famous architects to build green buildings Susan?
Then pay them to.
Otherwise, stop complaining and get busy facilitating it.
Comment by Jim — July 29, 2010, @ 2:05 am
This doesn’t make very much sense to me. Renzo Piano, Kieran Timberlake, Pugh + Scarpa, Foster… they’re all on the G-list.
And the list isn’t that long.
There are plenty of famous architects doing green buildings.
The last line in your article is especially offensive to them. Those 5 firms have done more than 500 Susan Szenasys to advance green issues in design.
Comment by _54enes — July 29, 2010, @ 2:21 am
4 firms that is
Comment by _54enes — July 29, 2010, @ 2:23 am
If you assume x dollars to build a formally innovative structure (experimental construction=increased cost) and y dollars to make it green (if the structure is innovative, then the green technology probably has to be as well, which means even more cost) - then it only makes sense that the A list would be dominated by projects that maximize x and the G list would be dominated by projects that maximize y.
Unless a client comes to an architect with an unlimited budget, where both x and y are elevated beyond the the standard $/sqft going rates, then that split between the A list and the G list would seem to be inevitable.
The discrepancy is more about the reality that design is about innovation and the most important projects are typically ones that are the most innovative.
If you want the most important buildings on the A list to be green, it isn’t going to do any good wrapping famous architects on the wrist with your ruler. The only people who can give you what you want are the clients - the investors and the developers.
If Gehry simplifies his work and puts the budget into green tech, then someone else will just come along and win the A list instead of him and then they’ll be the new Gehry.
Unless budgets are radically rethought, then I don’t see how the discrepancy between the A list and the G list ever really gets resolved. In the end, you get what you pay for, and the reason unclean buildings dominate our landscape is because that’s what clients were willing to pay for.
Comment by Tanya — July 29, 2010, @ 2:53 am
Bottom line- sustainable/ high performance building will increase as everyone’s education increases, the lay person using the building, the developer, the facility manager, architect, building supplies and building material manufactures and engineers. There isn’t just one player- even the government has a part and a role. All the players need to be on board.
Habitat is building LEED platinum buildings. Green doesn’t have to cost more.
Comment by klt — July 29, 2010, @ 11:58 am
Susan,
Your critiques of Gehry and the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum are becoming stale and I must say weak on understanding, relative to sustainability. The titanium panels will last over 200 years, the glass in the structure is insulated panels in thermally broken frames, natural daylighting abounds, walls are insulated, the titanium panels reflect solar rays thus prevently a huge solar heat gain and I could go on and on about how many sustainable features are in this building.
No, I don’t work for Gehry, but I have delved into his work extensively and have found him and his staff to be acutely aware of environmental aspects in their building and have complied to many European sustainability codes, standards and criteria in their work. These attributes have been included in many of their projects in the United States as well.
Regarding other architects who have been been involved are:
Richard Meier [The Getty Center received LEED rating] and Renzo Piano has received LEED ratings on numerous buildings as well.
Oh yes, you forgot to mention one of the grandfathers of sustainability, one who many of our most outstanding contemporaries have studied extensively and who continue to study as they grow in age and stature and that is Frank Lloyd Wright. We all know his philosophy and his use of sustainable materials and features.
Susan, with all due respect, please research more about the architects you critique before putting hand to keyboard or pencil to paper. You will get a more deep appreciation and understanding for the work that they do.
Comment by Randy — July 29, 2010, @ 1:17 pm
Isn’t it interesting, Randy, that of the 150 green leaders who were contacted by Lance for his survey, none of them mentioned Gehry or Meier as green; why would this be? They mention Piano, yes, because he walks the green talk. And why drag Frank Lloyd Wright into the current discussion? He was green before anyone used the word. The issue is the disconnect between today’s A and G list.
Comment by sss — July 29, 2010, @ 4:36 pm
the definition of “green” even by LEED standards is still pretty sketchy. let’s take piano’s california academy of science building. this received a platinum rating. funny thing is though - they got this partially because they were able to EXCLUDE all of the mechanical for the exhibitions. this is because exhibitions are considered temporary. EXCEPT, in this case, the massive water tanks and mechanical required to run that is PERMANENT. the amount of energy that is required for that is immense.
the other question has to do with rated performance vs. actual performance. surprisingly enough, there are very few tests run on buildings after they have been occupied to actually confirm their level of performance as designed.
so, i think the only way for the A and G list to converge is for architects to propose and answer bigger questions than just getting the LEED stamp. why didn’t piano take the challenge of making a design which better supported the capturing of sustainable energies to offset the mechanical systems that would be inherent and permanent in the building? why don’t architects pursue more thoroughly post-occupancy analysis of their buildings (i might argue this is a touchy one - though. i don’t want to say that the design of one building should just be the same but better version of the previous one. especially in the case of environmentally responsive (or reactive) design - when the context changes, the design, materiality and systems of the building must change in kind.)
Comment by se — July 31, 2010, @ 4:16 pm
That’s pretty funny “se”.
“why don’t architects pursue more thoroughly post-occupancy analysis of their buildings”
Well, I think it’s probably because if an architect went to their client’s building after it were completed and told the client that they want to double check and see if their building actually deserves its LEED rating, after all the money the client spent on trying to achieve that rating, the client would tell them to go jump in the nearest lake.
Architects don’t own the buildings they design. The clients do. Architects have no power to demand post-occupancy analysis of systems efficiency from their clients. They’re lucky these days if they even get paid.
Comment by Bill — August 1, 2010, @ 7:25 pm
its not that Frank Gehry does not care, he does care about sustainable building, but Gehry is not from the era with huge problems like global warming. After Globalization and Worlds booming economy he was granted to do what ever he wanted, this is not the case anymore. He is brilliant or not. He is an artist and the buildings he creates are magnificent, Perhaps corporations and governments can afford his work, but we as all the specifies on earth can’t. his style… and i would consider him to follow de-constructivism, is dying. Architects are not supposed to create problems and then try to solve them, but solve problems that have been generated.
he did good.
look forward.
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